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Of the world’s glaciers, those in the Himalaya are among the least understood. We know they are generally shrinking due to climate change, but their behaviour is different from other glaciers due to their covering of debris from surrounding mountain rock-falls. The impact of this rock debris isn’t well understood and it’s causing uncertainty about their future, and about vital predictions for Asian water supplies.

Our research focuses on one large Everest region glacier, Khumbu Glacier in Nepal. We’re collecting measurements from the rock-strewn ice, and combining these with analysis of 40 years’ of satellite images, to find out how fast it’s melting. We’ll feed this data into computer models, to predict how much meltwater the glaciers will provide in coming decades, and when they will finally vanish.